


How to Catch a Monster

by cinnamon_skull



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Sex, Angst and Humor, Art, Dark, Eventual Smut, M/M, Mystery, Slow Build, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3318578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamon_skull/pseuds/cinnamon_skull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi is an Oscar-winning makeup and special effects artist.  To give back to the community, he teaches a college course where Eren is one of his students.  At the end of the semester, he picks one student to intern at his Hollywood art studio for the summer.  </p><p>Eren is impulsive and stubborn with a design aesthetic that, at first glance, seems out of place in Levi’s advanced class.  But slowly Eren’s haunting designs and terrifying monsters lure him into the younger boy’s unexpected world – a wasteland of nightmares, titans and blood.</p><p>Levi and Eren become drawn to each other’s darkness, and the lessons begin to expand beyond the walls of a classroom.  </p><p>*Rating to go up for future chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Catch a Monster

“I heard he lived on the streets alone until he was thirteen,” a girl to Levi’s left whispered to her friends.

Levi kept his head down, hunching his shoulders slightly and leaning his arms casually against the white table in front of him. He always did this the first class of the new semester.

“No way,” added another, deeper voice. “He saw his mother murdered right in front of him when he was only seven years old.”

Levi continued to listen, his posture lazy and unassuming. Over the years, he’d heard it all—the nasty whispers in high school, the pitying looks from his teaches, the way an aura of red and black slowly began to separate him from his peers and everyone else.

“Oh yeah,” a boy behind them chimed in, tapping a pen loudly against the table. “They say he was covered in so much blood that it took three days to wash it all off.”

“Who cares?” another male voice replied, this one condescending and cold. “He’s a fucking millionaire with his own studio. I don’t care if he makes Dexter and Walter White look like angels, I’d still fucking work for him.”

“Yeah, because you jerk off to pictures of him on the Internet every night,” another student added, causing the group of students to erupt in laughter.

“Shut the fuck up, Braun,” the boy with the condescending voice snapped. “That was one time and you promised you’d never tell anyone!”

The classroom began to fill up in earnest, and the sound of scrapping chairs and the flutter of laptops snapping open drowned out the conversations around Levi.

After a minute, the tabletop vibrated as someone picked the seat next to him, kicking the stool with his or her foot so that it echoed loudly. Levi remained perfectly still and did not raise his eyes from the white counter in front of him.

The first day of class was always his favorite. There was something fundamentally pleasing about surprising a group of spoiled, nosey college students who didn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone. It was amazing how unobservant they always were, especially for a group of artists, who made it their life’s work to study the human figure. He’d been doing this for five years, and he’d never once failed to get the upper hand. He found it helped set the tone for his course, weeding out the weak ones and reigning in the barely contained chaos of adolescent arrogance in an art room setting.

He wasn’t even wearing a disguise, no prosthetics or makeup. He was dressed in a plain black v-neck and faded jeans, the silver chain he always wore tucked safely behind the material of his shirt, the pendant resting warmly against his heart.

“What do you think the first assignment will be?” asked the same girl from earlier, her high-pitched voice rising easily over the drone of other students.

“Probably something involving horror and blood,” answered another girl. “There isn’t anything Levi likes more than gore.”

“Is that true?” asked the student sitting next to him in a quiet voice. Levi turned his head slowly and was greeted by the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. The boy’s irises were so vivid he thought he must be wearing colored contacts. He moved his eyes lower to take in tan skin and light brown hair, the stands curling slightly at the nape of his neck.

“Levi?” he asked, tiling his head. Beyond his bright eyes and the silver hoop shining in one of his eyebrows, the student sitting next to him was rather unremarkable. His voice, however, seemed to vibrate with a deep intensity he wasn’t used to hearing from someone so young. There was something guarded about his posture, though he seemed perfectly at ease to be addressing Levi so informally on the first day of class.

Levi felt the corners of his mouth pull down in a frown. “Hmmm,” he responded, turning away and pushing away from the table in one smooth motion. Though his encounter with the student sitting next to him was unexpected, Levi still had the element of surprise on his side for the rest, and he intended to use it to its full extent.

Walking to the front of the room, he cleared his throat, and then leaned against his desk. Crossing his arms over his chest, he allowed himself a moment to sweep his gaze over his new class, taking in the stunned and reddening faces around him.

They looked like a normal batch of unimpressive, shit-for-brains college students, wasting their parents’ money on a slowly dying vocation.

The X-Files group who’d been sitting nearest Levi were slunk low in their seats, looking guilty and uncomfortable. A girl with light pink hair sitting to Levi’s left looked like she was snapping a picture with her phone but quickly dropped it into her bag when Levi’s icy gaze turned toward her. A group of burnt out looking wannabes gathered near the back of the room, while a very preppy blonde boy wearing a garish collection of pastel clothing dropped into the seat Levi had vacated.

The student with the green eyes wasn’t looking at him or the newcomer, instead gazing out the window with a bored look on his face.

“Welcome to Advanced Special Effects Course 5001,” Levi drawled. “As some of you know,” and here he paused to glare at the group in the front, “my name is Levi Ackerman, and I’ll be your mentor for the next ten weeks.”

The classroom remained completely silent.

“In your time here, you’ll be pushed to your creative limits, and I will ask you to work outside your comfort zone on many occasions,” Levi continued. “Don’t fight me. I know what I’m doing.”

At his last words, the green-eyed student turned his head away from the window to gaze at Levi with the same intensity from earlier.

“At the end of the semester, I will pick one student to intern at my studio for the summer.” Levi looked around the room to see the look of determination that crossed a few of the students’ faces.  An internship at Colossal Studios lead to a full-time position, a dream job for anyone sitting in his classroom.  

Levi’s lips pulled back to expose his sharp, white teeth in a cold, disarming smile. “Any questions?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Can’t lie this is inspired by my (not small) obsession with Face Off. :)
> 
> This is going to be a fun one, so buckle up for the bumpy ride to ereri-ville.
> 
> For updates, teasers, drabbles and all things ereri, follow me on [tumblr](http://cinnamonskull.tumblr.com/)


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